


trying to survive inside your arms

by verbose_vespertine



Series: electric feel [1]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Atmena "Mena" Jenkari'uul (original character), F/F, Just Unresolved Tension in General, Original Character(s), Pining, Power Dynamics, Slow Burn, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, charged hand touches, let me turn swtor into a victorian lesbian drama in peace okay, lightning as a metaphor for UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:02:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23603497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verbose_vespertine/pseuds/verbose_vespertine
Summary: Mena teaches Jaesa to cast lightning. The electricity is far from the only spark.
Relationships: Female Sith Warrior/Jaesa Willsaam, Sith Warrior/Jaesa Willsaam
Series: electric feel [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1719985
Comments: 7
Kudos: 21





	trying to survive inside your arms

**Author's Note:**

> I asked the discord server for prompt ideas and was told to write about soft pining, hand touches, and the Master/Apprentice dynamic. So this is what you get.

The sound of crackling electricity fills the ship, and Jaesa follows it to the cargo hold. Mena, dressed down in loose pants and a narrow athletic band over her breasts, has set up a makeshift training dummy, scavenged from the carcass of a ruined droid. She holds an arm out in front of her and flexes her fingers, her face screwed up in a look of concentration that shifts into a pleased grin when thin bolts of white-purple lightning arc from her fingertips to the droid, dancing across it with a sound that rings on the hollow body. 

When the electricity stops flowing, Mena shakes her hand, making a quiet noise in the back of her throat that sounds a little like satisfaction, but Jaesa can’t be sure. Rolling her head lazily on her neck but not turning toward the doorway, Mena asks quietly, “Are you coming in, or are you just going to stand there?”

“Sorry, my lord,” Jaesa steps timidly into the cargo hold. The space seems smaller than usual as she stands beside Mena and looks at her sidelong, avoiding looking at the pronounced ridges along her sternum and at the edge of her ribcage.

“I’ve never been much good with lightning,” Mena flexes her fingers again, studying her hands. “But my father always wanted me to be well-rounded.”

“You could try teaching me?” Jaesa half-regrets the suggestion as soon as it is out of her mouth. “They say you really know something when you can teach someone else to do it.”

“I can certainly try.” Mena smiles with a flash of sharp teeth, and Jaesa notices that her face is free of its usual gold-dust highlights, that she isn’t wearing her jewelry. It’s the first time she’s seen Mena’s bare face. If anything, it makes her almost more intimidating.

“Where do we start, Master? Do you need to make me angry first? Help me find some inner hatred to channel?” Jaesa’s tone is just shy of mocking.

Mena laughs, another flash of teeth along with the soft sound, as she takes Jaesa’s hand and lifts it gently. “First, you don’t have to call me ‘Master.’ It feels...odd. Second, you insult me. Not everything we Sith do _has_ to come from anger or hatred.”

She steps in close to hold Jaesa’s arm out in front of her, taps lightly at her elbow and wrist, “Relax, please.”

With Mena so close, the top of her head just under Jaesa’s chin as she works, positioning her arm and hand, Jaesa slowly breathes in the scent of Mena’s hair before blinking herself back to focus. She can smell Mena’s hair in every breath— _better just not to breathe then_. But Mena has been speaking; has she missed anything?

“So you want to feel it in your whole core, and send it out,” Mena places a hand over her own chest before drawing a line up her arm, down to her palm, and into her fingers. When she has finished the line, she mimics the motion against Jaesa’s arm, fingers just barely grazing the skin from her elbow to her palm.

When her fingers reach Jaesa’s palm, Mena releases the smallest burst of lightning, dragging her nails to the tips of Jaesa’s fingers. Jaesa catches a noise of surprise before it can escape her throat, surprise less at the jolt of electricity and more at the shiver she has to fight from the feel of Mena’s nails— _claws_ , really—and at the tremor she is sure she feels Mena try to suppress too.

“And yes, _usually_ you find your lightning with your anger, but you don’t have to. I focus on the person who taught me. Sija.” Mena’s face softens while she remembers.

Jaesa tries not to feel a pang of jealousy at the look on Mena’s face. If Jaesa’s face betrays her struggle, thankfully Mena misses it, her gaze on their hands, now palm to palm.

“She was a servant in our house when I was a child. I thought that we were best friends because I didn’t understand our roles. She has always been stronger in the Force than I’ll ever be, but she taught me a lot of things, and she held me accountable when she left,” Mena’s smile darkens. “So maybe there’s more anger in my lightning than I thought.”

Mena is still holding Jaesa’s hand out in front of them. Dropping her hand and stepping around Jaesa’s extended arm, she leans in by Jaesa’s shoulder. “Give it a try.”

Jaesa takes a deep breath, tries to feel the energy building in her chest the way that Mena described it, to feel energy turning into lightning inside her, but all she can feel is the ghost of Mena’s nails drifting down her arm and lingering against her palm. There is the faintest residual tingling from the lightning that Mena cast into her hand, but when Jaesa flexes her fingers and focuses on the droid, nothing happens.

She can nearly feel Mena smiling beside her. “I didn’t get it on my first try either.”

“You could have told me that first.”

“You wouldn’t have tried as hard. And I wanted to see what your honest effort looked like.” Mena snakes an arm around Jaesa’s waist to press a hand firmly against her abdomen, over her diaphragm, drawing out a surprised squeak. She places her other hand on top of Jaesa’s, outstretched still before them. From her reach, her cheek rests against Jaesa’s arm.

For a moment, Jaesa feels like a bow, drawn between Mena’s hands, and just as tightly strung.

“Now close your eyes—”

Jaesa can feel Mena’s lips moving against her arm through her sleeve. A little afraid that if she closes her eyes, she’ll lose her balance, she does as she is told.

“—breathe in with me—”

_Breathe? How?_

“—breathe out, and… release,” Mena flexes her fingers over Jaesa’s, casting lightning through the tips of Jaesa’s fingers to fly across the room to strike the droid target.

Jaesa bites back a gasping cry, initially at the surprise and the quick spike of pain, opening her eyes to see bright streams of electricity flowing out of her fingers, a conduit for Mena’s energy. Slowly, Mena draws her fingers up from Jaesa’s hand, lightly gripping her forearm. The stream of lightning weakens, fizzles, but holds out for several seconds more.

When it stops, Jaesa laughs, turning her face to Mena. “At the end, that was me?”

“That was you.” Mena confirms, smiling into Jaesa’s arm. After a moment standing in relative silence, the last crackles of electricity leaving the air and Jaesa panting lightly, Mena steps back, rubbing her palms together. “Right then. You’ve done well.”

“I’ve barely done anything, my lord.”

“Enough for now though.” Mena smiles, but her eyes darken in a way that makes her expression hard to read. When she turns to leave the cargo hold, Jaesa can’t tell if she imagines Mena reaching to nearly brush their hands together.

“Thank you, my lord,” Jaesa says quietly, to empty air left in Mena’s wake.

**Author's Note:**

> Standard disclaimer that Jaesa belongs to EA/Bioware/the StarWars folks, but Mena is all mine. I have Plans for these idiots involving so much more pining, longing, yearning, and them being general idiots who need to just kiss already dammit.
> 
> Many many thanks to MissSpookyEyes, SunsetOfDoom, and pineaberry for looking this over helping with edits/suggestions.
> 
> Title from the song "Firebreather" by Laurel. Honestly a great song for pining.


End file.
